I decided to write my January second post on something that most of us are going to be breaking today -New Year’s Resolutions. While I expect my resolutions and yours will vary more than slightly, it’s worth considering the goals behind the resolutions (which may be similar) and an overall methodology for creating and keeping resolutions.
Step One: Set Your Ground Rules
The first thing I did this year was to consider the types of resolutions that I wanted to create. I did this by creating three rules for resolutions:
- Resolutions Must be Measurable – No “eat healthier” or “get in shape” resolutions on the list this year. I want to find things that are measurable habits (e.g. “eat no more then 2000 calories 6 days a week”) or goals that can be accomplished during the year (“get myself in to marathon shape”).
- Resolutions Must Require Daily Attention – Resolutions should not be things that you can “get to later”. For example, a resolution you could put off is “read a Dickens novel”. That’s a great goal, but it’s not really a resolution. Resolutions should require us to change the way we look at and plan our days. If reading is that high of a priority, consider something like “read for an hour every evening”.
- Resolutions Must be Attainable as a Whole – I am a firm believer in the concept that you change your life by setting goals and resolutions, consequently I love New Year’s as a time to do just that. I believe that carefully choosing one resolution and achieving it all year will do more for you then choosing 10 and only making it half way through the year. Consider selecting only a few resolutions. After all, if they’re too easy you can always add June resolutions.
Step Two: Revisit Your Life Goals, Set Resolutions Accordingly
With those rules in mind, it’s time to think about what my resolutions should be. As with any prioritization of my time (daily to-do lists, career planning, etc…) this begins with a look at my life goals. I’m not going to bore you with my entire set of life goals, maybe in another post I’ll discuss how I’ve come to these goals and what they are. For now though, I’ll lay out a few of my life goals that resulted in resolutions this year:
- Life Goal: Live a Healthy Lifestyle
I never really had my freshman 15 in college. There was so much walking between classes, pick-up sports and other activities (also helped that I dated a marathon runner). I did, however, hit the office 50 in the year or two after I graduated college. I put on at least 50 pounds courtesy of an expense account, weekly travel, and a job that involved a lot of sitting. Since then, I’ve shed most of it with a fairly healthy lifestyle. When I was considering a resolution aligned to this life goal, I wanted something that would be a milestone accomplishment that signaled my march to good health is complete.
Resolution: Run the 2010 City of Pittsburgh Marathon
- Life Goal: Foster an Innovative, Entrepreneurial Community in Pittsburgh
Obviously this goal is a little more abstract then the first. It is something I can’t do on my own, but I can do my part. Since I am living in Charlotte at the moment, the goal becomes particularly tricky. Tricky goals are fine. In fact, I knew I needed to create a resolution or two for this goal because it is tricky.
Resolution: Blog everyday
Resolution: Keep in touch with at least two Pittsburgh contacts per week - Life Goal: Live my Faith
This is another goal that fits in the “tricky” category. I’m living 500 miles from my home church (Southside Presbyterian) and I have major deadlines nearly every Sunday associated with my MBA. Additionally, the pressures of business are not the fostering ground of strong faith. I needed a resolution that I could actually keep (something that didn’t take a lot of time on Sunday), but would be meaningful in my faith walk.
Resolution: Read the Bible daily, finish it by the end of the year
Step Three: Create Mechanisms that Will Help You Keep Your Resolutions
Wow I feel so much better now that I have some resolutions – back to life as is. After all, it’s January 2 and resolutions are so yesterday. I kid of course. The inherent problem with resolutions is that they are game changers. It’s easy to keep them the weekend you make them, but how do you build them into your life more permanently? The answer must be carefully considered. If you don’t have a good answer to the question, you will fail to keep your resolutions. To give you some ideas, here are a few of the mechanisms I’ve put in place to help me keep my resolutions this year:
- This Post – I’ve now shared these resolutions, all of you will be wanting to know did I finish the marathon? The Bible? Even if you’re not a blogger, try telling your friends, colleagues, family what you’re planning to do.
- Through the Bible in a Year – There are a lot of programs out there that lay out a schedule for completing the bible in a year. I picked one that automatically gets downloaded in audio format to my Android phone’s “Google Listen” application each morning.
- ActiveTrainer.com – Active Trainer allows me to purchase a marathon training program. My “coach” emails me every morning at 5am, just as I roll out of bed to tell me exactly what run I’m supposed to do.
